Chapter 11. The Cubs

After Rick, no one came for over an hour.

I sat on the blanket, pressed against Grey, and counted the minutes. They crawled like treacle, and each one throbbed dully in my temples. The blanket under me had begun to dry — the rain had stopped in the night, and now the sun, slowly climbing above the treetops, was doing its work. The damp still hung in the air, but it was no longer that icy, bone-deep wet. The ground beneath me was warming through, and I could feel the heat seeping up through the fabric, thawing my frozen body.

Birds sang somewhere far off — their chirping sounded almost mocking in that silence, as if they didn’t know what was happening down below. I breathed in the smells: wet earth, fresh grass slowly drying, the bitter tang of torch smoke. All of it mixed into a strange, almost ordinary morning scene — an ordinary day, if you didn’t look at the details.

I looked at the torches.

Nine of them left. Nine flames burning steady, almost solemn, in the morning light. In the sun they looked paler than at night — the yellow flame almost melted into the gold of the light, and only the faint tremor of air above them reminded you that they were still burning. Nine hours. Nine steps to freedom. Or to a new prison. I didn’t know. I just watched them and waited.

People passed by from time to time. Men and women — some curious, others openly disapproving. I felt their eyes on me, and it was almost physical — like the touch of a stranger’s hand. Children ran past, laughing and shouting, not understanding what was happening. Their voices quickly faded, and I was left alone with the silence. Wolves appeared too — they ran along the fence without slowing, their eyes flashing for an instant before they vanished behind the trees. But no one entered the circle. No one broke the silence.

On the one hand, that was a mercy. Every hour without a man added to my chances of survival. The longer they waited, the less time left for all the rest. Every hour that passed was a small victory, and I clung to that thought like a drowning woman to a straw.

But on the other hand, it frightened me. I remembered Grey’s words: forty wolves at least — and, quietly, while I’d been counting torches, the number in my head had crept up to fifty. Fifty men. And I didn’t know whether it would be spread out over the hours or turn into one unbroken marathon. So far everything pointed to the second. The silence felt like the lull before the storm, and I felt the tension gathering in the air, tightening my muscles, quickening my heart.

I felt like an exhibit in a zoo. People looked at me — at my naked body, at the collar at my neck, at the blanket that covered barely half of me. I saw everything in their eyes: curiosity, judgement, pity. Sometimes — lust. And that was the worst of all. The children’s eyes were hardest of all: they didn’t understand what they were seeing, and so there was no shame in them, no pity either — only pure, dispassinate wonder. And that frightened me even more: the world went on living, laughing, running, as if nothing in particular were happening.

Twice, I saw Dan. He walked past — unhurried, hands in his pockets, not even glancing my way. Just walking, his profile flashing between the trees before he disappeared round the bend. He didn’t turn his head, didn’t look at me — as if I didn’t exist at all.

And that stung.

I caught myself on the thought and very nearly laughed out loud.

Honestly, Sasha? I asked myself. You’re hurt because the man who fucked you in front of your boyfriend and handed you to the pack isn’t looking at you this morning? What the hell is wrong with you?

I snorted, shaking my head. There I was, Alexandra Vance, sitting on a blanket in a forest, naked, collared, and sulking because the pack leader wasn’t giving me any attention.

Yesterday he was so greedy, so insatiable, I thought. And today he walks past as if I were a patch of empty air. And that bothers me? What kind of idiocy is that?

I laughed at my own thoughts. Probably I was going mad. Or maybe it was simply the female in me — wanting to be noticed, even by the ones I hated. Especially by the ones I hated.

I turned the thought over, looking for a clean way out of it, and found none. It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t even vanity. It was worse and simpler than that: his attention was the only proof I had that I existed. That I was still a person and not a thing the pack passed round. When he looked at me, I was — someone. When he didn’t, I was — it. And some starved, ugly part of me had already learned to live on scraps of being seen.

I don’t know what’s more frightening, I thought. That he doesn’t see me. Or that it hurts.

You should be grateful he’s staying away, I reminded myself. Grateful you have time to rest. That you’re not on your knees in front of the next wolf. But no — you’re sulking because the pack leader isn’t looking at your bare arse.

I shook my head, feeling anger simmering inside — at myself. For that stupid, utterly idiotic hurt. For letting myself think about him at all. For caring about his attention. I hated him. I was supposed to hate him. And there I sat, wondering why he wasn’t looking at me.